Every day I eat a handful of grapes.
They are fermenting in me
making wine
in my blood.
The bread of my life
is laid out before you.
How many communion wafers
do you have to eat
to become the Body of Christ?
What is the half life of Jesus?
How long does it take
to know
I’m already
ready,
already
enough?
Because of this line between us
we are empty.
Empty hearts make for bad bedfellows.
Because of this line between us
we are brave.
Brave enough to be silent.
Our braveness
and our emptiness
fill us up
and empty us out.
Sometimes we don’t know
if we are
coming
or going.
Sometimes both.
Because we sure aren’t here.
Perhaps somewhere in our silence
we can stop
long enough
to be still
and see each other
for real,
for the first time.
Seeing and being seen is such a raw thing.
Unopened, closed off we are safe
from exposing our soft spots.
We face off like duelists,
turned sideways,
never straight on
for to turn sideways
is to expose less of yourself
and to protect your heart.
The heart is what matters most
after all.
So we draw these lines
between us
and are empty
and silent
always afraid
we’ll get hurt.
It is really fascinating to see different people’s reactions to when they hear why I don’t go to my old church any more. Every now and then members of that church come into the library where I work. Sometimes they ask why they don’t see me anymore. Sometimes they don’t ask and I tell them anyway.
I’ve pared down the story to what is essentially an elevator speech. It is short and to the point. I explain how the church experience that we are being served doesn’t match up with the Church that Jesus came to create. That it isn’t about us giving all of our tithe money to support a building but the Body of Christ. And that Body isn’t just the church members but everybody. I point out that Jesus didn’t tell us to have ministers or a division of lay and ordained.
It is interesting to note the reactions. Some people start to turn away from me, to actually try to leave. I think they feel threatened by my ideas. An alarm clock is certainly threatening to people who are asleep.
I would have had the same reaction to anyone saying what I’m saying about five years ago. How dare you attack my church?
But now I think about what church is, really. Who are we serving? Who are we following?
One person I talked to said that the church is being run like a business. He said that the former priest did the same thing. And yet he still goes. He said his wife refuses to go to that particular church because of the priest who is there. I’ve met others with the same sentiment.
But it isn’t the minister. It is the whole idea. We are doing it wrong.
The minister is being duped too. She’s bought into the system. She has the most to lose, so her ego is tied to it.
And sometimes I find a sympathetic ear. Sometimes I find another rebel. Sometimes I find someone who feels the same way and is also searching, also feels that something is wrong. Sometimes they tell me that they are going to other churches. They are shopping around.
They haven’t yet realized like I have that the problem is bigger than that minister or that parish.
We have to strip the whole thing down and start all over again. We can’t fix it from the inside. I tried that. I was viewed as crazy. I still am by many of those who still go to that church. Declaring someone as crazy is the fastest way to discredit someone, after all. It is the fastest way to silence someone.
I’ve not gone silent. I’ve just gone away. And in leaving I’ve found a large community of people who are just the same as me. They love Jesus, but they weren’t finding him in the church. We can’t all be crazy. Perhaps there is something more going on. Perhaps we are the only sane ones. Perhaps it is just like with “The Emperor’s New Clothes” – perhaps we are the only ones who are seeing things the way they really are.
The morning of sunsets
and seashells is upon me.
The cry of the seabirds
is my alarm.
Wake up! They cry-
It is much too late
to be beginning.
It is the start
at the end:
but late is better than never,
right?
I keep finding out about opportunities to paint and drink at the same time. This seems like a fairly new idea. You get together with other people and you all paint the same thing and you either bring your own alcohol or the venue provides it. All the instruction and paint and canvas and brushes are normally provided.
For me, alcohol would just get in the way, but I see the point. Plenty of people have a hard time getting in touch with their inner artist. They essentially need permission to create. They’ve shut that side of themselves down for so long they’ve forgotten it is there. Drinking a little helps people unwind. It doesn’t make them creative – it lets them be creative.
It is like drinking when I paint. When I paint I get high, no alcohol needed. I step into a new world where the rules change and anything can happen. There are always surprises. That is why I paint. Painting is an escape.
I don’t paint very often though. Painting is messy. Painting takes up a lot of space. I can’t do it just anywhere. I need to have enough room to put down a tarp, so that is always in my craft room. I don’t spend a lot of time in there actually crafting though. I should probably call it my craft supply room instead. It is mostly where I keep the materials, but not use them. I’m getting over that.
I’ve thought about going to one of these classes and not drinking. But then I remember that the classes aren’t free form. There is a goal. There is a pattern. We are expected to copy the pattern as best we can.
For me, the best part of painting is the discovery. I don’t want to walk along a set path with a guide and a bunch of other tourists. I want to wander. I want to wonder. I want to find new things and be amazed by them.
Perhaps I’m making my life more difficult with this attitude. Perhaps if I learn from someone else how to paint I might learn something that would help me when I’m painting on my own. Perhaps I’ll learn some tip or trick or technique, in much the same way that I learn when I watch cooking shows. I rarely cook what they cook, but I learn how to cook what I want in a different way.
I resist following others. I resist fitting myself to another’s pattern. But then I struggle with things on my own because I don’t know how to do them. I’m realizing this and adjusting accordingly. I can learn from others without copying them.
I’m starting to use my librarian super powers and I’m not even a librarian.
There is a little girl who I taught to read last year. She is a lovely Hispanic girl, and her Mom brings her into the library weekly. I was blessed to be there the moment she “got” reading. She put her sounds together and her letters together and was able to read an unfamiliar word. She lit up. I gave her another word, and another. She nailed each one.
There is a problem now, a year later. Now she is getting only DVDs. I noticed this a few weeks ago and I said to her – “Get books. No more DVDs”. It didn’t work. I saw her last week getting the maximum number of DVDs – 10, and no books. She was standing on a step stool, looking through all the movies. She was at my height at this point.
I looked straight at her and said “Don’t let me think that I wasted my time teaching you how to read and all you are getting is DVDs. Go get books.” I pointed towards the books and away from the DVDs. She looked a little freaked out.
I’ll see how this plays out. If it comes to it I’ll have to learn how to say in Spanish to her Mom that she must get books. Mom doesn’t speak English at all. Her children have to do all the talking for her when they are out because they learned English in public school.
Part of the problem is that this girl is used to having her way. She is very cute and very pigheaded. I can tell she has her parents wrapped around her finger. Perhaps Mom and Dad understand the value of a good education, but they don’t quite get how important it is for parents to get involved in that education.
In order to be an actual librarian you have to have a Master’s degree in Library Science. I don’t. I just work in a library. I have a Bachelor’s in English. But everybody thinks that because I work in a library, I’m a librarian.
Working in a library is a lot like working retail, but with better public opinion. People think we are like teachers. They grant us more respect than in retail work. We are somewhat authority figures. I’m not sure why, but I’m using it anyway. As long as I use my powers for good, why not?
I’m looking at publishing some of my blog in book form. This has lead to a lot of questions. Do I self publish? If so, who with? How much do I want to do on my own? Do I try to find a “real” publisher? And perhaps more importantly, what do I hope to gain from publishing my words in book form?
They are already out in the world. They have already been seen. They are available all the time to anyone who has access to the internet.
In part I want to provide an experience. I want to provide an order and a flow to it. I wrote my pieces at different times and with different topics. And not everything is that great.
In part I had to write some of the “meh” pieces to get to the “ah ha” pieces. I’m reminded of the idea that you have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find your prince. So you have to write a lot of posts before you find your focus.
In a way I want to provide an appetizer, then a four course meal, then the dessert. I want the posts to lead from one to another in a logical way. I want them to be grouped together in a logical way too. There is an order of sorts with the blog because of tags and of categories, but there is nothing saying that people will go from one to another in order. That is a strength and a weakness to a blog.
Right now what I have written is more like an uncompleted jigsaw puzzle. That was helpful to me at the beginning. I allowed myself to write whatever I wanted and in whatever order. This meant that I didn’t have any rules. Sometimes rules help and sometimes they hinder. I felt that if I told myself I could only write about one topic at a time then I’d miss some posts that would be valuable. In a way it is like drawing without any lines. You have to do whatever works to get the work done.
Recently I was talking with a guy with a company that is a division of Thomas Nelson. That company’s name would be in my book, but it would still be mine and I would pay for it. It wouldn’t be cheap. The starting price is one thousand dollars.
Cough.
Now, that amount of money isn’t just for their name. They would do the formatting. They would create the cover. They would professionally print it. They would proofread and edit it. Basically all I’d have to do is write it, and really, that is already done.
Now, it would have to fit in their strict guidelines. They are a Christian company. They don’t allow slander, cursing, or plagiarism in their books. You also have to actually state that you, the author, are Christian.
In a way they would legally protect me too. They would make sure that nothing in it could come back to haunt me.
But a thousand dollars is a lot of money. I’d get just ten copies for that. I’d have to pay for more copies.
The representative was trying to rush me, to get me to commit to them. He wanted me to hand over money before he even looked at my work.
I told him that I know his job is to get the little fishes into the basket. He laughed. He couldn’t say anything to that because “The call will be recorded for quality assurance purposes.”
I was being kind. His job is to hook them, to reel them in.
I said I’ll think about it. I haven’t dismissed that avenue. That name is a respected one in the book world. They have high standards. Their books are good inside and out. If I went with them, that would make my work look even better and give it a level of authority.
He mentioned something that publishing your own book is like starting an independent business. If you are going to open a coffeeshop, do you go and do your own thing, or do you go with a known brand? Do you have a small Mom and Pop shop or do you lease a Starbucks? He said that people gravitate towards the already known and already tried. Also, if you go with the known brand they’ve worked out a lot of the kinks for you.
But, a lot of people I know trust the individual shop more. They like the quirks and charm of a one-off. They’d rather support an independent over a chain any day. They know that more time and attention goes into the independent shop. They care, because they have to.
What I need to do now is to separate the wheat from the chaff. I need to focus in on one topic or a related group of topics and put them all together. I’d need to do this for any publisher – whether it is “real” or self-published. I already have a good idea of what posts the most useful or helpful that I’d like to use.
There is nothing stopping me from trying with CreateSpace. It is the self-publishing division of Amazon and is totally free. I’d have to do most of the work. The reviews are good. I have friends who have used them and they like them very much. But you get what you pay for.
The marketing is the same with both companies. There is none. I’d have to do it all on my own.
And, as people are pointing out, actual brick and mortar book stores are disappearing. So why am I worried about the idea of how am I going to get my book on the shelves and into the hands of readers?
I certainly don’t just want to just sell to my friends. That is a very limited pool. I want a wide audience. I knew someone who got in on a pyramid scheme of selling supplements. The pyramid collapsed on him because he was only able to market to his family and friends. He ended up having to buy a lot of the product himself. That is insane.
I am bold enough to say that I think that some of the things I have written are revolutionary, and helpful, and needed. I am bold enough to say that I think everybody should read what I have to say, especially Christians. They will be the most challenged by it, and they will give me the most flak.
Boldness is part of writing. Just writing, even if it is just for yourself, is claiming your voice. It is saying that what you think matters and needs to take up space in the world. To post it for your friends to read is another step. To post it so strangers can read it is a further one.
I feel like I am just getting braver and braver with each step.
Where am I headed?
Further away, or closer towards? I think that perhaps it is a little of both.
I know too many people who let their children decide what they are going to read or if they are going to read. This is the same as letting them decide what they are going to eat. No child is going to make good choices. They are going to go for the comic books and the candy. That is why you are their parent. You are there to direct and guide them.
Just like a potter with a lump of clay, the potter shapes it and molds it until it is tall enough and strong enough that it will be useful. It has to be shaped in such a way that it can endure the heat of the kiln and the wear and tear of use.
Children have to be shaped so that they can be strong too. They need to be shaped so that that are good people and helpful and kind. They need to be shaped so that they can survive out in the world and not crack.
So in the same way that you wouldn’t let a child pick out all of his food when he is only going to go for cake and chips, you can’t let him pick out his books when he is only picking out what is essentially junk food for the mind.
Now we all need a little junk food reading every now and then. It is important to let kids have some control over what they select. They need to learn that reading is a pleasure and not a punishment. They need to feel that it is fun and not work. But a solid diet of junk food results in a sick body. A solid diet of junk food reading results in a sick mind.
If you let children have total control that is the same as the potter letting the clay have control. They will be an unformed lump at best. They will be spread all over the place at worst.
Don’t know what to recommend to your child? Go to your local library and ask a librarian. They are there to help. You don’t have to do this on your own, but you do have to do this. The mind you save will be your child’s. The world you will save will be your own.
There are no words for our grief. We are here together, wordless, numb, and hurting. We cannot make sense of this senseless loss.
But we are here. We are here to pay our respects to Hannah. We are here together as a testament to our love for our friend, our coworker, our wife, our mother. We are here searching to make sense out of a senseless thing.
Let us comfort each other in our grief. Let us take this time now to cry with each other, to hold each other, to wail with each other. I invite you to do this now.
In some traditions there is something known as Passing the Peace. You do it by shaking the hand or hugging all the people next to you, one at a time. You say “Peace be with you” It is done as a sign of reconciliation. It is done right before communion, because it is important to approach the Lord’s table with an empty heart – one that is free of the burdens of grief and anger. Those feelings keep us away from our true nature, which is love.
When we are angry or grieving we are closed off and cold. The purpose of reconciliation is to make us open and warm. When we are open we grow. When we are closed we die.
Many of us are angry right now. We want answers and there aren’t any. Why did Hannah have to die? Why did someone we love get taken away from us, so soon in her life?
Many of us are angry at God, and that is alright. Be angry. God can handle it. We are the ones who can’t handle it if we hold it in.
I’m not here to explain any of this. I can’t tell you why she died the way she did. I’m not here to tell you that it will all make sense and it is part of God’s plan. Because it will never make sense. And I don’t believe that God plans for us to feel pain, certainly not this kind of pain.
I believe that God is crying with us, is wailing with us, and is holding us right now. I believe that each time we share our grief with each other, God shares our grief with us.
God is there, acting through us. God is in the arms of the person you hug in your grief. God is in our arms as we hug them.
I invite you to be open. I invite you to open yourself to these feelings and to let them out. Cry. Wail. Talk about Hannah. Talk about how you love her.
Notice I said love, and not loved. There is no past tense with love. Love doesn’t end with death, it just changes shape. Where before the shape was the size of Hannah, now it has to expand. It has to get big enough for us to include each other in it. Every person here has a tiny bit of Hannah in them. When we share our grief with each other, we are also sharing Hannah with each other.
Open up. Don’t close yourself off.
Our society teaches silence and stoicism. Our society teaches us to have a stiff upper lip and that big boys don’t cry. Our society is full of it.
Cry. Let it out. Let it out because that grief will hold you back from life. That grief will hold you back from love.
That grief, locked up, will hold you down under the waves for so long that you’ll stop being able to breathe. That grief, locked up, will kill you. Maybe not literally, but you’ll be dead just as certainly as you would be if you drowned. Grief, locked up, leads to a certain half-life, a certain zombie like existence. Grief, locked up, only delays the pain, it doesn’t get rid of it. Let it out, and live.
Let it out because you have to. Let it out because you must, because you love Hannah.
Talk about her. Celebrate her life. Celebrate the time she spent with you and everything you did together. Do something in honor of her, something that you both enjoyed doing together. Donate to a charity in her name. Plant a tree. Paint. Write. Dance.
Many people say that to show joy in grief is to show disrespect to the person you are grieving for. I say that to not show joy is to not show the love you have for her.
We grieve deeply because we love deeply.
Be open. Be open because you love Hannah.
Peace be with you.
(Written as a eulogy for a young mother who died tragically.)
So what is the deal about the term “recovering” addict? You are never described as a “recovered” addict. It is as if you never get there. You are never home safe.
And really, you aren’t.
Even if you have been sober for twenty years, the fever is still there. Even if your last hit was so terrible that you ended up in jail and then the hospital, and you lost your wife and house over it, that fever is still there.
Because you forget. You forget how bad it can be. You forget how bad it was. All you remember is the high and the good times. All you remember is how it took away the pain.
You forget about all the pain it can bring, and did bring, to you and to everyone you love.
You say you are “recovering” as a sign to you and to others that there is no escape from addiction. You never ever are the same after you’ve been an addict.
You know what it tastes like, and you want it again. You forget the bitter and only remember the sweet. And you think that just because you were able to escape it then you can do it again. You think lightning can’t strike twice. You think you can just do a little bit of it and be fine. You think you are smarter than it.
It is the same as playing with fire. While fire can help, it can harm. It can light up the room and keep you warm, or it can burn down your house. It can be the difference between cooked food and raw food – it can also be burnt to a crisp and made worthless.
Drugs burn us up and make us worthless.
The trouble with drugs is the same as the trouble with fire – it can’t be contained very well. You think you’ve gotten it under control but really it controls you instead. You don’t do drugs. They do you.
When you forget, you’ll start doing drugs again. Just a little. Just to “take the edge off.” Soon you’ll be sneaking out to buy drugs. You’ll make up excuses. You’ll lie to your loved ones. You’ll call in sick to work. You’ll miss out on all the activities that you used to do for fun – because you are using drugs.
You think – that can’t happen to me. That is for suckers. That happens to losers. And I say to you – what makes you so special?
You aren’t special to drugs. You are another conquest. They are like a virus, eating away at all that is you. Slowly, slowly, you lose your fight. Slowly, slowly, it wins.
Quitting doing drugs doesn’t mean you are cured. You can’t get immunized against drug addiction. No matter how much you’ve done and how long it has been since you stopped doing it, you aren’t safe. You haven’t built up a resistance.
The only hope is to never let them back into your life again. The only way to do that is to continue to say you are “recovering” and not “recovered” as a reminder to keep that door closed and bolted shut.
betsybeadhead 
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